A Wish Destroyed

The Fourth Hero

"Sparrow.... Sparrow...."

"Rose? It's too early in the morning!" I whine as a little girl with messy pigtails shakes me awake. I shiver as the wind skips on my chilled skin and blows the tattered rags I call clothing. I twist around and huddle up into a freezing ball.

"Sparrow!" Rose says more urgently, pulling me back. I hear a low growl from Daisy and some light sheds on the makeshift shelter Rose and I built. It's useless, but better than sleeping on the muddied snow which gathers on Bowerstone Oldtown's streets.

I open up an eyelid to see Rose hovering in front of me, and three guards behind her, one holding a torch, and another trying to soothe Daisy.

"Rose?" I ask, alert and awake as I sit up on my rough mattress of cloth and straw. "Rose, what's going on?"

"The lady and the music box! Sparrow, it worked! It actually worked!" she exclaims, embracing me with her cold fingers holding my unwashed and untidy hair.

"What worked?" I question as my brain tries to comprehend what's happen while still in a slumber. Rose pulls back and I wipe my eyes to get rid of any lingering sleepiness. I can't help but yawn, though.

"Our wish, Sparrow! We're going to the castle!" she squeals, clasping her hands together. "Sparrow, it worked!"

"No," I whisper, tears coming to my eyes, "Not this dream again." I sit up straighter and look directly into my sister's shining eyes. "Rose, you can't go. Don't go."

"And why not?" she frowns, hands on her hips. "Isn't this what we've always wanted?"

"Yes..." I hesitate, squirming under my sister's gaze. "But--"

"But nothing, Sparrow! We have spent all our lives begging for coins and sleeping on the streets! We barely have a crumb between the both of us! I want us to not have to worry about if we'll make it or wonder if we'll have something to eat tomorrow! I want us to have a good life! A good home! Don't you want that for us too?"

"You can't, because I know if you step foot into that castle, you will die!" I yell out. I turn away from her. "I don't want to see this again."

"No! No!" I hear Rose cry out and I spin around to see a study with thousands upon thousands of books which line the curving walls. Papers are scattered about painted in black with the words of a madman in front of me. One with a gun pointing at my sister.

"I am truly sorry," the man whispers and a bullet passes through Rose.

"Rose!" I shriek as I watch the body of my dear sister crumple on the floor, blood oozing out of her chest, coloring the floor a deep red. I reach a hand out to her, barely noticing the man and his gun pointing at me. "Rose--!"

Another gunshot. The breaking of glass. Hundreds of feet between me and the wintry land. Blood spatters my forehead as the bullet lodged itself in my head, skin deep, but painful nonetheless. The cracking noise of every bone in my body.

And I'm alive still.

Why?

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